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SEATTLE – In a move that could change the course of the Seattle wine industry, Walla Walla’s Charles Smith has landed in Georgetown in a huge way.

On Saturday, Smith opened his Charles Smith Jet City winery near the north end of Boeing Field. The 32,000-square-foot facility is in a 51-year-old former Dr Pepper bottling plant – ample room for him and his crew to produce upwards of 40,000 cases of premium Washington wine.

Smith, who launched K Vintners in 1999 east of Walla Walla, bought the building in the blue-collar Georgetown neighborhood in early 2014 and spent the next eight months completely refurbishing and preparing it for the 2015 harvest.

“Everything that’s been produced in Walla Walla will be produced here,” Smith told Great Northwest Wine. “All of our small-batch winemaking.”

That includes K Vintners, the high-end Charles Smith wines (including Royal City Syrah), Super Substance, Sixto and Casa Smith. The core of Smith’s team, led by winemaker Brennon Leighton, has moved to Seattle from Walla Walla for the winery’s transition to the west side of the state.

This move does not mean Smith has forsaken Walla Walla. He still owns 150 acres of land in the region that is a five-hour drive to the east. He still has two tasting rooms in Walla Walla, and he still owns a home there.

“I needed a bigger winery,” Smith said. “I didn’t have enough space in Walla Walla. If you’re going to build a 32,000-square-foot building, it makes a lot more sense to put it in Seattle. As much as I enjoy living in Walla Walla and make my home there, it makes more economic sense (to be in Seattle).”

Smith has been farming grapes in Walla Walla since 2001 and now has 48 acres planted.

Leighton, former white winemaker for Chateau Ste. Michelle and head winemaker for EFESTE in Woodinville, lived in Walla Walla for three years. He told Great Northwest Wine that it was important for him to spend that time amid the vines, though he is happy to be back in the Seattle area.

Earlier this year, Smith and Leighton hired Katie Nelson as assistant winemaker and viticulturist. Nelson, who lives in the Yakima Valley town of Prosser, worked for Ste. Michelle Wine Estates for several years as a roving winemaker. She was the winemaker of record for O Wines, one of Ste. Michelle’s labels.

Now with Leighton living west of the Cascades, Nelson will be an integral part of the team because she will oversee much of the winemaking for Smith that still takes place in the Columbia Valley.

Smith contracts about 2,800 acres of vineyards throughout the vast Columbia Valley, producing in the neighborhood of 650,000 cases. This makes him the third-largest wine-producing company in Washington, after Ste. Michelle Wine Estates and Precept Wine.

Much of his wine is produced in custom-crush facilities throughout Eastern Washington (a strategy most large wineries use), though the winemaking is carefully directed and produced by Smith and his staff.

Georgetown is a hardworking section of south Seattle. Smith said he likes the vibe of the neighborhood, and he named his new winery Jet City to honor the location near Boeing Field and the area’s aviation roots.

“I picked Georgetown because it’s an area in the greater Seattle area where people make things,” Smith said. “That’s the only part of Seattle that I’d ever want to put my winery. I’m an industrious person. I’ve made something out of nothing, and I’m willing to roll up my sleeves and work hard. It’s that working person’s mentality.”

He said the neighborhood and the city will stimulate his team.

“For a winemaking team, we need to come up with new ideas, new feelings and new passions and enthusiasm for the process of growing and making wine,” he said. “Living in a city such as Seattle, which is right on the edge of nature, makes all the sense in the world.”

Smith pointed out that unlike Woodinville, his location is easy to get to for city dwellers.

“It’s a heck of a lot easier to get to Georgetown from downtown Seattle than it is to get to Woodinville during the summer,” he said. “Woodinville is still a destination. Georgetown is part of the city of Seattle.”

He’s especially thrilled to be so close to CenturyLink Field (home to the Seahawks and Sounders) and Safeco Field (home to the Mariners).

“That’s the cool part,” Smith said. “I like sports, and I have season tickets to see the Mariners. Everyone wants to go see football these days because of the Seahawks. What’s really great about Georgetown and where my new winery is, I’m 2.5 miles away from the ballparks.”

Next year, Smith plans to have a sports wine club. Fans will be able to come to his winery, pre-function with some wine, perhaps stop at a local bar or restaurant, then head to the game.

“It opens a lot of possibilities for visitors to do multiple things,” he said. “You’re a 10-minute Uber ride from downtown Seattle. You catch I-5, and you take the Albro exit. We’re halfway between downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac.”

If, as expected, Smith’s presence in south Seattle takes off with consumers, it could forever change winemaking here. Already, there are more than 20 urban wineries, all of which are small producers. About a half-dozen are in or near Georgetown, and they will undoubtedly benefit from Smith’s presence, just as the magnet that is Chateau Ste. Michelle managed to create a major wine industry in Woodinville.

Smith said he has no preconceived notions about how many visitors he will attract. But the fact is that Smith also is a magnet. He makes delicious wines that are broadly available and in all price ranges – from $10 to $140.

“People think we’re going to be absolutely jammed,” Smith said. “I hope people like the place and want to visit.”

Don’t bet against Smith to do anything except succeed. That’s all he’s done so far.

The Walla Walla winery, 1704 JB George Road, is rolling out a new Food and Wine Pairing Class, one of two new tours, taking tasting to another level with a first-of-its-kind lesson in how to think about food pairings with the wines.

The classes will be in partnership with chef Jake Crenshaw of Olive Catering.

“I make wines that are best enjoyed with foods,” said Pepper Bridge partner and winemaker Jean-François Pellet in the announcement. “Working with chef Crenshaw, we focus on the aromas, flavors and tasting profiles of our estate wines and how they work with food.”

The 90-minute classes will be offered Fridays and Saturdays at 11 a.m. The class is $50. Wine club members pay $40.

The program, inspired by Jennifer Clapp, director of consumer sales and a certified sommelier, will begin in the tasting room. Participants will tour the winery on their way to the library room, where they will be seated for selections of three small bites. The food will be paired with a Pepper Bridge merlot, cabernet sauvignon and its Trine.

The menu will change with the seasons, featuring fresh ingredients and providing firsthand experience in how wine and food work together.

In addition to that program, Pepper Bridge is also unveiling a new Private Tour and Tasting.

It takes place Thursday through Sunday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The hourlong tour offers a chance to see how the winery works, plus get a taste in the cellar. It starts with a walk through the gravity-flow facility and is followed by a private seating tasting in the underground library room. The tour is ideal for in-depth tastings and conversation with Pepper Bridge brand ambassadors, the winery said.

The cost is $20 per person or $15 for club members.

Sessions are limited in size to eight people each, so reservations are a must. For more details, call 525-6502 or visit pepperbridge.com.

Winemaker William vonMetzger’s 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon using grapes from five top Walla Walla Valley vineyards earned best of show at the third annual Walla Walla Valley Wine Competition. The competition took place June 16 at Walla Walla Community College.

VonMetzger’s 2012 Merlot also earned a double gold and best of class.

Walla Walla Vintners is one of the oldest wineries in the Walla Walla Valley, having launched in the mid-1990s by Myles Anderson and Gordy Venneri. VonMetzger joined the Walla Walla Vintners team in 2002. A year ago, the winery’s 2012 Cabernet Franc won best of show at the judging.

The wines by Victor Palencia, owner and winemaker for Palencia Winery at the Walla Walla Regional Airport, showed exceptionally well. His 2014 Sauvignon Blanc earned best white wine, while is Vino La Monarcha 2013 Malbec won a unanimous double gold. Additionally, five more of his wines won gold medals.

Bergevin Lane Vineyards won a double gold and best of class for its inexpensive 2012 Calico Red, while its 2012 She-Devil Syrah won a gold and best of class.

The Walla Walla Valley Wine Competition is conducted by Great Northwest Wine, and proceeds from the competition fund a scholarship for students at Walla Walla Community College’s vauntedCenter for Enology & Viticulture.

The judges for this year’s competition were: Hank Sauer, a Walla Walla native and longtime Northwest wine competition and education professional; Ken Robertson, columnist for Wine Press Northwest magazine; and Mike Rader and Paul Sinclair, both members of Great Northwest Wine’s tasting panel.

Bronze

A new label completes a packaging changeover for Woodward Canyon Winery’s second label, Nelms Road.

The new label showcases a map of roads winding through fields, highlighted by copper foil, the winery announced.

Along with a change from corks to screwcaps starting with the 2012 vintage, the transformation updates the presentation for a wine that can be cellared but is ready to be enjoyed now.

At $25 a bottle for the cabernet sauvignon and merlot, the wines produced under the Nelms Road label are at least half the cost of other Woodward Canyon reds.

With the price point and its place on many glass pour lists, the screw cap was ideal for ease of opening and to eliminate concern about loss from tainted corks, the announcement explained.

To go with it, operators felt it was also time to change the label, said co-owner and General Manager Darcey Fugman-Small.

Rather than a focus on the 1870s farmhouse home to the Woodward Canyon tasting room, the new design focuses on the roads.

“Originally we wanted to keep the farm house as the focal point of the label, but once we saw the map design, we were sold,” Fugman-Small said. “The label retains that rural feeling, but is more interesting and fresh.”

The operation’s sustainable practices continue to be reflected in the changeover, as the new labels are printed on recycled paper. Another change: It will also clearly state that Nelms Road is part of Woodward Canyon Winery, the announcement said.

A new luxury wine tour through Washington Wine Country will treat participants to a hands-on experience from the vineyard to the glass and from Walla Walla to Prosser.

Taste Vacations, a Montana-based company, will launch a four-day, three-night tour Sept. 27-30 in partnership with tourism agencies from Yakima, the Tri-Cities and Walla Walla.

In the first two days in Walla Walla, participants will learn about the community’s cultural and agricultural history with a guided tour downtown and travel to several wineries and vineyards, to include blending and tasting sessions and gourmet meals.

“We chose Washington, and more specifically these wine regions, due to their position as the leading grape growing areas of the state, the breadth and depth of outstanding wines coming from these areas, the convenient access via Tri-Cities Airport, and the two, bubbling small towns of Walla Walla and Prosser that are excellent bases for wine tourism,” said Taste Vacations founder Allan Wright in the announcement.

The tour was created and will be led by Sarah Wolcott, who grew up on a farm in Southeast Washington, graduated from Whitman College and has a wine MBA from the Bordeaux Business School in France, the announcement detailed.

These are exciting times in Pacific Northwest wine country. Winemakers and wine lovers are exploring new and interesting grape varieties.

Cabernet sauvignon is king in Washington, but there’s also a yearning for such red varieties as mourvèdre, grenache, tempranillo, cinsault and petite sirah.

It’s so much fun, but lost amid the hoopla over these myriad varieties is merlot. That’s right: We’ve forgotten about the grape that got us here. Merlot brought us to the dance, and now we’re doing the Hustle under the disco ball with the next sexy thing to come along.

And that just isn’t right.

Merlot was Washington’s first big hit. In 1993, it became our No. 1 red grape and stayed there for the next 13 years, until king cab took the throne. What happened during that time? Washington’s wine industry tripled in size. And it brought attention to our little corner of the wine scene.

There’s a reason merlot is so great in Washington. Left to its own devices, merlot vines will get out of control, growing to prolific levels. This means the resulting fruit will be green and underripe. This is what can happen in many parts of the world where soil is rich.

But in the arid conditions of Washington’s Columbia Valley, our dirt is sandy and nutrient-poor. With almost no water coming from the skies, grape growers have deity-like control over the drip-drip-drip that comes from irrigation hoses.

So, in most parts of the world, merlot is a pain to do right because it wants to send out lots of foliage. Here in Washington, we let Mother Nature do her thing. The result is a powerful red wine — often bolder and more tannic than its big brother, cabernet sauvignon.

Merlot deserves your attention, and the Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance is here to make sure that happens.

This year’s Celebrate Walla Walla Valley Wine event, June 18-20, focuses on merlot. And not only merlot from the fascinating soils of that corner of Washington and Oregon, but also from Napa Valley, Tuscany and merlot’s ancestral home: Bordeaux.

The keynote speakers for Celebrate Walla Walla are Fred Dame, America’s most famous master sommelier and star of the documentary “Somm,” as well as wine critic Steve Tanzer. A tasting of merlot from six producers will be led by Seattle’s Sean Sullivan. Sign up at wallawallawine.com.

It has been a decade since Dusted Valley Vintners switched to screwcaps from corks. While many wineries have embraced twist tops through the years, Dusted Valley is one of the few to bottle such wines in the $30 to $50 range.

Owners Corey Braunel and Chad Johnson — who are brothers-in-law — recently tasted through their 2004 and 2005 vintages, the first wines to go under screwcaps.

Corey Braunel, Griffin Frey and Chad Johnson are the winemaking team at Dusted Valley Vintners, which has tasting rooms in Woodinville and Walla Walla. Braunel and Johnson are brothers-in-law and co-owners.

“We were so pleased,” Braunel said. “Our eyes lit up with how the wines were maintaining vitality and freshness.”

In addition, the two have seen consumer pushback to screwcaps diminishing through the years.

“We get less and less blowback all the time,” Johnson said. “We are getting overwhelmingly positive response.”

Dusted Valley began in 2003 in Walla Walla and opened its Woodinville tasting room in 2009.

“Woodinville continues to be such a strong part of our brand,” Johnson said. “It shortens the drive (for Seattle customers) and is a fantastic way to bring our wine to so many people who wouldn’t otherwise discover us.”

The tasting room is near Purple Café, just around the bend from Chateau Ste. Michelle and Red Hook Brewery. Thanks to the proliferation of Woodinville tasting rooms, Dusted Valley is in an area with more than 120 wineries.

Even with the area’s tremendous growth, Dusted Valley continues to see more visitors.

In 2014, Braunel and Johnson hired Griffin Frey to take over winemaking duties. He will oversee production for the high-end Dusted Valley label (5,000 cases), as well as the value-minded Boomtown label (15,000 cases). The latter is produced at Wahluke Wine Co., a custom-crush facility near the Grant County town of Mattawa. Braunel and Johnson are so pleased with how well Boomtown is doing, they plan to grow production by as much as 20 percent per year.

Since their first vintage, the two have shown their prowess with syrah. Today, they are equally talented with such varieties as cabernet sauvignon, petite sirah, grenache, merlot and cabernet franc. Most of these wines are made in lots of 300 cases or fewer, which means the members of their wine club — the aptly named Stained Tooth Society — get first crack at their best stuff.

Whether you are looking for a bottle of red for tonight or a special wine to cellar long term, it’s difficult to do better than Dusted Valley Vintners.

Andy Perdue is a wine author, journalist and international judge. Learn more about wine at greatnorthwestwine.com.

Born in 1985 in Michoacán, Mexico, Palencia emigrated to the United States when he was 2 years old. His father wanted a better life for his family and came to the Yakima Valley, where he picked up a shovel and began working in the region’s mint fields. Eventually, the elder Palencia moved into orchard and vineyard work.

While most high schoolers fill their after-school hours participating in sports, working at fast-food restaurants or playing video games, Victor Palencia headed to the vineyards with his father to help support his family. This is where his love for wine began.

After graduating from Prosser High School in 2003, Palencia became the first in his family to go to college. He earned his winemaking degree from Walla Walla Community College, thanks in part to a scholarship from Leonetti Cellar. During his time in the Walla Walla Valley, he worked for such wineries as Saviah Cellars, Sleight of Hand Cellars, Basel Cellars and Zerba Cellars.

After graduation, he returned to Prosser, where he was hired as assistant winemaker at Willow Crest Winery. This landed Palencia in The New York Times, which wrote a feature on him because he was an underage winemaker who couldn’t legally taste what he produced.

Two years later, Palencia was hired as director of winemaking at J&S Crushing, a custom winemaking facility in Mattawa, where he also produces the wine for Jones of Washington and several other clients. In total, Palencia is responsible for more than a million cases of wine.

In September 2013, Palencia came full circle, opening Palencia Wine Co. at Walla Walla Regional Airport (while also keeping his day job in Mattawa) — a few weeks after attending his 10-year high school reunion.

Palencia’s first releases have been nothing short of superb, following the success he has shown with Jones of Washington. Here are a few of his latest wines, which we’ve tasted recently. Ask for them at your favorite wine merchant or contact the winery directly.

Palencia Wine Co. 2012 Casa Amarilla, Yakima Valley, $36: Palencia’s new Rhône-style blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre comes from his high school stomping grounds around the Yakima Valley town of Prosser. Aromas of dark and dusty blue fruit, allspice, clove and fresh-baked brownies lead to broad flavors of ripe dark fruit. It’s all backed with mild tannins and bright acidity. (14% alc.)

Palencia Wine Co. 2013 El Viñador Tempranillo, Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley, $50: Palencia’s first effort with this classic Spanish red variety is a beauty. It opens with aromas of Rainier cherry, black pepper and a hint of caramel. Bright red fruit highlights the palate, with flavors of ripe strawberry, raspberry and rhubarb. It’s all backed by well-integrated tannins and perfectly balanced acidity.

Palencia Wine Co. 2013 Albariño, Ancient Lakes of Columbia Valley, $18: Albariño is still a rare white variety in the Pacific Northwest, but wines like this will go a long way toward bringing it into the mainstream. It opens with aromas of dusty lemon, pineapple, pear, gooseberry, lime peel and the dusty minerality found so often in white wines from this emerging Columbia Basin region. The drink is clean, refreshing and driven by citrus as the blast of acidity is rounded out ever so slightly by the finish of lemon bars. (13% alc.)

Vino La Monarcha 2013 Pinot Grigio, Columbia Valley, $15: Palencia’s second label pays tribute to the monarch butterfly, which migrates north from his birthplace of Michoacán, Mexico. It’s a dazzling wine with aromas of citrus and cardamom along with apricot, cotton candy, rose petal and spearmint. It’s a fun drink that’s loaded with white peach, tangerine and sweet herbs. Enjoy this with grilled fish or green salads. (12.3% alc.)

When gazing at a wall of wine at your favorite wine shop, you might begin to wonder why bottles come in different shapes and whether this is by design.

Generally speaking, there are four types of bottles, each for a different kind of wine from a specific region of the Old World.

Three of the most common bottle shapes you’ll find on store shelves are Burgundy bottles (front) with sloping shoulders, tall hock bottles(left) and Bordeaux bottles (right), with high shoulders.

Bordeaux: Traditionally used in France’s Bordeaux region for varieties such as cabernet sauvignon, merlot, sauvignon blanc and semillon, this bottle is distinctive for its high shoulders and narrow profile. You might also notice wines from Italy and Portugal using this type of bottle.

Burgundy/Rhône: These bottles are wider at the bottom than Bordeaux bottles, and they have sloped shoulders. This is traditional in the French regions of Burgundy and the Rhône Valley, so you’ll almost always find pinot noir, chardonnay, syrah and viognier in a Burgundy/Rhône bottle.

Sparkling wine: Sparkling wine bottles are similar in shape to Burgundy/Rhône bottles, but they are thicker by design to hold their integrity with the 90 pounds per square inch of pressure inside from all the bubbles. The indentation on the bottom — known as a “punt” — is important to keep the bottle from bursting (no doubt discovered through trial and error in Champagne).

Hock: These tall, narrow bottles are common in Germany and the Alsace region of France. They typically hold riesling and gewürztraminer. For the most part, wineries stick with traditional bottle shapes for their wines, which can make it slightly easier to find them on a crowded shelf. However, it is not unusual to find the occasional pinot noir in a Bordeaux-shaped bottle. In fact, Dick Erath put one of his early Oregon pinot noirs in a tall hock bottle, reportedly because it was less expensive.

Bottles come in various colors, though most red wines will be in brown or dark green glass to protect the wines from damaging sunlight. Clear glass is used for many white wines, particularly sweet wines, including Sauternes.

Rosés are bottled in clear glass to show off their beautiful pink color. Sparkling wine often is in green glass. Blue glass is occasionally found in the Northwest, usually with riesling or muscat inside.

Occasionally, you will see other shapes. For example, Italian restaurants might have inexpensive Chianti in a straw-covered bottle called a “fiasco.” Expensive dessert wines, particularly British Columbia ice wines, come in tall bottles that hold half the normal amount of wine. I’ve also seen novelty bottles shaped like violins, fish or even a skull.

You might notice that some wine bottles weigh more than others. A typical full bottle of wine weighs about 3 pounds, but it can surpass 4 pounds. This often is a marketing ploy to lead you to believe a heavy bottle is better and, thus, should be more expensive. A movement has started in recent years to use lighter bottles, which reduce a winery’s carbon footprint, as well as save substantially on shipping costs.

Andy Perdue is a wine author, journalist and international judge. Learn more about wine at greatnorthwestwine.com.

It’s a red grape variety rarely found in America and often difficult to track down in wine shops. It’s not the next big thing, but tannat could be coming to a glass near you.

Tannat (pronounced “tuh-NOT”) originates in southwestern France, a relatively obscure region called Madiran in the foothills of the Pyrenees. And while it has been grown there for the past 400 years or so, it’s becoming more famous in the South American country of Uruguay, where Basques transplanted it around 1870.

Bart Fawbush, owner of Bartholomew Winery in Seattle, just finished fermenting his first crop of tannat. Seattle Times photo by Mark Harrison

Not long after that, tannat arrived in California, where it remains relatively obscure. Perhaps 250 acres are planted there, and its production accounts for less than 0.1 percent of the total California wine-grape harvest.

Tannat is a big wine, a tannic monster that is bigger than cabernet sauvignon and perhaps even the massive petite sirah. A well-balanced tannat could easily age for decades, I suspect.

With more than 100 wine-grape varieties being grown in the Pacific Northwest, why would we want yet another one? Because it could well be perfect for our region, particularly in the arid climate of Eastern Washington’s Columbia Valley.

Tannat is easy to grow: It handles frosts and cold temperatures well, is not susceptible to disease and ripens in the middle of harvest.

What’s not to love?

That’s what Bart Fawbush thinks, too. Last fall, the owner of Bartholomew Winery in Seattle brought in his first tannat grapes, grown at Konnowac Vineyard in the Rattlesnake Hills region of the Yakima Valley.

Fawbush, whose winery is in the old Rainier Brewery building in Georgetown, likes experimenting with unusual varieties such as carménère, primitivo, tempranillo, souzao and aligoté. So tannat is ideal for him. Fawbush plans to make about 100 cases of tannat, which likely will be released in summer 2016.

Across the mountains in Richland, Rob Griffin at Barnard Griffin has been making Washington wine since 1977.

He’s known for working with a lot of grapes — he harvested no fewer than 25 varieties last fall. In 2013, he brought in his first tannat from a vineyard on the Oregon side of the Columbia Valley near the town of Arlington. While that first harvest was interesting, he said his 2014 edition could be downright superb. When he releases it in another 15 to 18 months, it likely will go first to his wine club members — who are used to fun and unusual wines.

If you want to try tannat, you won’t have to spend much for examples from Uruguay or Madiran. Because of the rarity of the grape, prices for domestic examples (such as the Tablas Creek version I’m reviewing here) are likely to be higher.

Andy Perdue is a wine author, journalist and international judge. Learn more about wine at greatnorthwestwine.com.

Walla Walla Valley wineries are well known for high-priced, high-quality red wines.

It is not unusual for a Walla Walla winery with no track record to ask for $30 or more for a first-release cab or syrah. But one little winery is bucking that trend, crafting gorgeous reds at incredible prices.

Grantwood Winery produces just 250 cases of wine, making such reds as tempranillo, zinfandel and syrah. It is not unusual for a micro-producer to charge reserve-style prices to maximize profit in the face of small volumes.

Yet Joe Grant and Doris Wood, both 75, quietly sell their wines typically under $20. How do they do that? More importantly, why?

The two grew up in the valley. Wood was in real estate for 34 years, while Grant became a civil engineer and lived in California for 40 years. He came back to visit family and, on a lark, applied for a teaching position at Walla Walla Community College. He taught there for a decade and got interested in winemaking by reading books.

He and Wood met when she sold him a home, and they’ve been together since.

Both have done well in life, so neither feels the need to make a lot of money on their wine venture. Their grapes are grown locally at such top vineyards as Seven Hills, Pepper Bridge and Les Collines.

All of their equipment is small, inexpensive and labor-intensive. Grant knows to the penny what each case costs to make, and he’s more than pleased to sell his wine for prices that often are less than half of what others in the valley might charge.

“We’re happy,” he says. “We’re getting by.”

They produce only a barrel or two per wine, and they sell everything they make through their tasting room.

Grant said he isn’t opposed to expanding a bit if his wines continue to sell out quickly. He might even add a couple of barrels someday and bump his production to 300 cases.

Grantwood is just a few minutes west of downtown Walla Walla on Heritage Road. Stop by or call 509-529-5872 to have wines shipped.

Andy Perdue is a wine author, journalist and international judge. Learn more about wine at greatnorthwestwine.com.